The nakedness of Crutchfield’s music is the source of both its confidence and its vulnerability.

Rice seeks 24/7 momentousness here. [Jan 2007, p.92]

The album is another leap forward for the producer, refining his sense of songcraft and expanding his instrumental palette without sanding down his rough edges in the slightest. Faith doubles down on the industrial brutality of Problems, while also balancing that with a sense of hope and comfort rarely heard from Stott previously.

The LP’s sunset pastels and recurring elastic bass lines at times threaten to rob the tracks of their singularities. But 99.9% is a success because Kaytranada fosters an environment where every guest shines.

On (), the band steer their ghost ship into darker waters, erecting a vast, austere cathedral of sound, then sticking around to score a funeral mass inside. [Dec 2002, p.140]

This double album (complete with lush art booklet) is styled like a toga party, but some tracks ("Fit for Caesar," "Lucretius") are closer to the 'shroom-chewing highlights of Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii.

Scales are Middle Eastern, obviously; tempos range from up to mid-plus; the programmed drums generate rhythms that few American tub-thumpers could map, much less replicate. There's far more variety in what Sa'id plays than in what Souleyman sings--flute sounds, an orchestra once. But Souleyman's intensity nails it.

Ostensibly a supernatural tale, Hotel Valentine challenges the listener to reflect on life, death, and nothingness. Whether that inspires joy or terror depends on you, but it'll inspire something.

Perhaps the most ambitious moment on the album is its warped title track which goes from a whisper to a scream when Eilish’s crystalline vocals burst from power ballad to an explosive Metallica-esque electric guitar anthem. Still, it’s the unwavering vulnerability of Eilish’s songwriting that makes Happier Than Ever most impressive.

Obviously, hip-hop loves its thugs, too, especially if they're the antiheroes of a relatively nuanced piece like this one.

The final result is a balm to soothe well-trodden emotional frequencies.

2 Chainz forges deeper emotional connections, but that surface is as entrancing as ever. B.O.A.T.S II ups the production values like a true sequel should.

Li's new album, Wounded Rhymes, is equal parts seething ice princess and lonely snowwoman, vacillating almost track by track between fury and despondence over a scotched relationship.

The duo leaven Perfect World’s miserablism with just enough smeared hooks and doom-metal licks to make converts of the underground faithful and the casual headbanger; as tortured triumphs go, this debut is a doozy.

This is dance music downsized for iPods but also indie rock expanded for the dance floor. [Jan 2007, p.89]

The abundance of spacey synths and clattering, reverbed percussion makes Thank Me Later feel like ideal cruising music for a ramshackle UFO, but it also incorporates dynamics like few other hip-hop albums before it.

Lewis' wordplay smartly unspools over the course of a song--with 'Breakin' Up,' she creates a 'Since U Been Gone' for grown-ups, and on '15,' narrates an Internet jailbait vignette without melodrama or moralizing. [Sep 2007, p.132]

The album is more a rebirth, with Metallica exploring what they've learned durig their 20 years at the top of the heavy-metal slag heap. [Nov 2008, p.96]

Exchanging their volatile tendencies for restraint and focus, Godspeed You! Black Emperor have created another incredible work and one that finds them again evading the confines of formula--even if it happens to be their own.

Reflektor is long and weird and indulgent and deeply committed. It has three to five genuinely great songs; it also wanders off into the filler hinterlands for 20 minutes or so (out of 70).

The narrative structure of nighttime reveries can often feel unsettling, but throughout Slowdive, the band use foggy images and slippery transitions as a soothing sort of déjà vu--you feel like you’ve been here before, even though you obviously haven’t.

Face Control's programmed electronics, in fact, ring deeply human, and Boeckner's tortured vocals express shared experience rather than alienation.

Fully in charge on The W, RZA ditches the longeurs of Forever, borrows some adrenaline from Ghostface Killah's relentless Supreme Clientele, forsakes the Alesis drum machine, and returns to the crates to make the dirty, inexplicable music Wu fans want. [2/2001, p.106]

A lot of a listener’s acceptance of Care depends on their acceptance for nervous candor; for purposeful titles like “Lost Youth / Lost You,” for earnest existential wonderings of what “care” means, for transcribed 3 a.m. chats about how everyone looks at their phones and how warm skin is awesome.

Why Love Now is reserved in its sonic experimentation. But for a band as sharp and capable as this one, that’s not really a problem. Beneath the acerbic jokes, Korvette is a humane and considerate writer and performer.

Adorned with piano and synth, the ten songs on Re-Arrange Us are fuller, more elegant vessels for the duo’s warm, intricate melodies.

Here, a founding multi-instrumentalist member, a longtime bassist, and several supportive additions forgo the initial trio’s psychedelic pop for angular guitar riffs and agile Latin rhythms that evoke an adventurous, timeless sense of fun.

Ian Parton's picked up Young Guv’s gauntlet and made the power-pop album of the year.